What is the best way for China phone companies to stay relevant?

When I first started to get in to China phones, there were a few main brands that put out one maybe two phones a year, they tended to be higher end (well higher end china based mediatek) phones, the rest of the market was taken up with a mix of clones (of Apple and Samsung phones) and low end, low budget phones.

Over the last two years things have really started to change, with the release of newer 64bit soc’s from mediatek that are able to keep up with and in some cases beat soc’s from the likes of Qualcom, the newer breed of china phones are really starting to get noticed outside of China.

But with all these great features now becoming ultra affordable, there appear to be a lot more companies entering in to the market, most are offering rebranded handsets with decent specs and in many cases undercutting the original prices of the phones they have rebadged, whilst other companies are pumping out new phones at an incredible rate.

Many people are getting upset by the constant shift in new phones, that phone you ordered on pre-release last month with great specs and a great price, is just starting to ship… and the company announces their newest model will be out soon on pre-release… I can understand how frustrating this might be for some people and totally appreciate the annoyance it must cause to them, but if you look at it from another perspective is it really such a bad thing?

Whatever we buy in our lives will eventually be replaced with something newer and shinier, that is just inevitable.

I like the rest of you (hopefully) research my purchases based on what is currently available in my price range, if what I want and need is available in my budget I buy it and use it to do what it is that I purchased it for, happy in the knowledge that it fulfils my requirements and has done so within my budget.

Should I be upset that another phone is released soon after? or should I just be happy with my purchase? lets not forget that pretty much any current Mediatek 64bit SOC based phone will be fast enough to perform without problems and throw plenty of pixels around to keep even the most intensive games playing smoothly.

Yes its nice to have the latest and greatest phone, but over here in England where most handsets are given as part of a phone contract (on a subsidised basis), you are stuck with whatever handset you choose for 18 months to 2 years!

So if you were to choose for instance a S6 Edge (the phone will cost about $80 upfront + $80 each month for unlimited texts and calls + 4gb of 4g data) and get it on its release date, you would still be using that phone until the S8 Edge 3 is released.

At least with the current raft of China phones that we are luck enough to have access too, we can purchase a phone and use lower priced sim only packages, the same $80 monthly package on sim only is just $25

S6 Edge on 24 month contract

$80 upfront + $80 x 24months = $2000

VS

China Phone over 24 months on sim only

$180 upfront + $25 x 24months = $780

or to put it another way

$2000 – $780 = $1220

$1220 / $180 = 6.7777

That means that including the original China phone that you purchased at the start of the contract you could purchase an a new phone every 3.5 months over the 24 month period… sounds great but it gets better!

If you consider that you are likely to be able to resell your handsets for $100 + the number of new handsets you could have over that 24 month period becomes crazy.

Based on that math you have the choice to change your phone for the latest and greatest offerings or too be happy with the handset you picked and purchased (that lets not forget ticked all the boxes you needed at the time) and enjoy the financial savings each month on your contract.

Lets stop hating on companies like Elephone that are putting out lots of new phones and instead enjoy the innovation and speed at which we are able to get new tech, buy continually pushing the boundaries we are seeing ever greater products at amazing prices.

Hopefully with Elephone announcing the release of source code for the P8000 it will make other phone companies in China take note and do the same, this will help to ensure that older handsets continue to receive support they deserve.

If it was the other way around I would be a lot less happy as a geek than I am now, more toys for less money is better than less toys for more money.

Let me know what you think in the comments below, hopefully I have given a different perspective to a current issue.